After a long career at Barron's, I joined Forbes as San Francisco bureau chief in December 2010. I've been writing about technology and investing for more than 25 years. With the Tech Trade, I've picked up where I left off when I was writing the Tech Trader Daily blog at Barrons.com. When I'm not working, you can find me riding my road bike around the Bay Area hills, managing my fantasy baseball team, rooting for my beloved Phillies and Eagles and hanging out in the Valley with my family. You can follow me on Facebook, on Twitter (@savitz), and on Google+.

Yandex: 5 Analysts Launch; All Bulls Except For Goldman

Five investment firms picked up coverage of the Russian Internet search giant Yandex this morning, mostly with a positive spin. Note that all five the firms were underwriters for the firm’s initial offering.

Yandex went public in May at $25 a share; at Friday’s close the stock was trading at $35.69.

The stock is actually trading slightly lower this morning, perhaps because due to the one cautionary commentary on the stock, which comes from Goldman Sachs. Here’s a brief rundown on this morning’s batch of research on the company:

Goldman analyst Alexander Balakhnin starts the company with a Neutral rating and $36.10 price target. “We expect Russian Internet penetration to grow by 71% through 2010-15, and believe the Russian Internet advertising market will expand at a 35% CAGR [compound annual growth rate] over the same period. Thanks to first-mover advantage, dedication to product development and dominance in its market, we see Yandex as well-positioned to capture internet growth; we forecast a 2010-15 EPS CAGR of 33%,” he writes. But the Goldman analyst also notes that the stock trades at 39.5x expected 2012 EPS, “a premium to the Chinese Internet stocks.” The analyst adds that “as Chinese peers benefit from regulatory protection, this premium is unlikely to widen, in our view.”

Pacific Crest analyst Steve Weinstein launches with an Outperform rating and $45 target price. “We like YNDX because the company has a commanding market position, excellent technology and operates in a large market, which is being driven by strong secular trends,” he writes.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster sets an Overweight rating and $40 target. “We believe YNDX deserves to trade at a premium to the group given higher top-line growth and a proven business model,” he writes. “Long term, we believe the Russian Internet opportunity compares well to the open-ended opportunities in China and Latin America and expect Yandex to be the biggest beneficiary of growing Internet usage in Russia.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Okleberry starts the company with an Overweight rating and $42 target. “Yandex is the leading Internet company in Russia, a country poised for robust growth in Internet usage and advertising spend,” he writes. “Yandex’s record of innovation and execution should drive annual revenue and EPS growth of 40% through calendar 2015.”

Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel launches with a Buy rating and $40 target. “Yandex is the leader in search in Russia (with an est. 65% share), but the company’s dominant position in other Internet categories (maps, news, mail, shopping, payments to name a few) hold long term upside from a usage, and a business model innovation standpoint,” he writes.

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